


The Shadows Grow Longer

by virdant



Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, By some definitions of the word happy, Death, Elisabeth das Musical references, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional neglect, M/M, Magical Realism, Major Character--Death, Major character death - Freeform, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:41:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25238644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/virdant/pseuds/virdant
Summary: Blaine—too sensitive, too lonely—meets Sebastian as a child, and never wants to let him go. Sebastian—Death, alive for eons—sees Blaine and promises to never leave him.An Elisabeth das Musical AU for Seblaine Week 2020 day 2: Modern Retelling
Relationships: Blaine Anderson/Sebastian Smythe
Comments: 6
Kudos: 29
Collections: Seblaine Week 2020





	The Shadows Grow Longer

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Dana and Ellie who both read this fic for me.
> 
> This is a seblaine fic, but is also canon-compliant in many regards, in that Blaine does get together with Kurt, and they do break up. Klaine is not tagged, but forewarned is forewarned.
> 
> No knowledge of Elisabeth das Musical is necessary, but some notes on my inspiration (as well as some links to youtube videos) are in the end-notes.

### 4.

The barrel of the gun is cold on his temple, and Blaine closes his eyes and smiles.

### 1.

Sebastian found him as a child.

Blaine was staring down at the bird. Its wings had twisted underneath itself, unnaturally. He had been studying it, the sensitive boy that he was, face flickering for grief.

Sebastian stepped out of the shadows and waited.

Blaine was a lonely child. Cooper was much older than him, too busy with his own friends to pay attention to his pesky younger brother. His father was focused on his work. His mother tried, but she was distracted with problems of her own to pay attention to her sensitive son with dreams in his eyes. Blaine had taken to wandering the backyard on his own, shirt stiffly neat on him, bow-tie tied crooked because he couldn’t manage to do it on his own, and his mother never seemed to notice the way it twisted under his fingers.

He had found the bird, still fluttering, and his hands had closed around the downy feathers until it stopped moving, and that was when Sebastian came to him.

Perhaps Blaine had heard him. Perhaps it had been something else. But Blaine looked up to see Sebastian before him. 

“Who are you?” Blaine asked.

“Who do you think I am?”

Blaine looked down at the bird, so still in his hand, and then back at Sebastian. Sebastian seemed to loom over him, tall and dark like the embrace of the night.

“Did I kill the bird?”

Sebastian stood before him and covered Blaine’s small hands in his own. “Yes.”

“I didn’t mean to.” Blaine’s eyes were wide and young. “I just wanted to hold something soft.”

Sebastian smiled down into dark curls. “You did.”

Blaine hesitated. Sebastian took the bird from his hands. Sebastian’s touch was gentle, his hands as soft as the down of the bird. 

“Do you know who I am, now?”

Blaine looked up at him. Sebastian was fully grown—had been, for eons now—and Blaine was still a child. It was a child’s understanding that gave Sebastian his name, in the treble tones of a child who had yet to learn how to tremble. 

“You’re Death.”

Sebastian blinked.

Sebastian had lived a long time before he met Blaine.

He had courted empresses and emperors. He thrived in wars, plucking those who caught his interest from the battlefields. He kissed the starving and left them pale and breathless. His kiss had always been deadly.

He could not tell you when was born. He could not tell you how long he had lived. He knew that it was eons—eons drifting from one soul to another, searching for the brightest ones that would hold his interest. He could tell you that he had been disappointed for many years.

Blaine was a child, six years old and his hands still small and pale in Sebastian’s own. He was a lonely child; his brother too old for him, his father too busy, his mother too distracted. But his soul blazed bright, and he looked at Sebastian and saw the truth of who he was.

Death.

“That’s right, but you can call me Sebastian,” Sebastian said to Blaine. “Are you frightened?”

“No.”

“Good.” His hands were full, otherwise he would reach forward and stroke a hand through those rumpled curls, straighten the crooked bowtie at Blaine’s neck. It was bright red, like a kiss, like a noose. 

“Did you come for the bird?”

Sebastian looked down at the bird, and then at Blaine, with his bright soul and his pale hands. “No,” he lied. “I came for you.”

* * *

To outside appearances, Blaine was a lonely child.

He had no friends, just acquaintances, and those drifted away when they saw his distant eyes and his lingering fascination with violence and death. He danced in fallen leaves and dug up worms from the ground, eyes flickering from side to side in search for a person only he could see.

As he grew older, Cooper grew more and more distant. Cooper had his acting to pursue, and he drifted from one class to another with the lackadaisical air of somebody who knew he would get what he wanted eventually. As he grew older, his father began to lay expectations before him: top grades in math, in the sciences, in the rigid logic that defined his life. As he grew older, his mother remained distant, looking for her own life outside of the confines of their carefully structured family.

Dinner was quiet, the way it always was.

Blaine sat very still as he ate. He’d tried to talk, earlier, only to be shushed by his father and ignored by his mother. Cooper was out, the way he usually was. It was just Blaine and his parents, both of them preoccupied with their own thoughts. His father, thinking about his business and investments, his mother thinking about the life she had given up when she married his father.

When Blaine’s father spoke, it was to Blaine’s mother. Blaine’s mother did not respond.

After dinner, Blaine retreated to his room. He got ready for bed on his own, staring at his own face in the mirror as he brushed his teeth. His mother did not stop by to check to make sure he was reaching the backs of his milk teeth, and his father was busy.

When he was ready for bed, he went to find his mother. His bare feet pattered against the hardwood floor, and he scrunched his toes against the planks. His mother was in her bedroom, staring out the window with her usual distant gaze.

“Mom?”

Blaine’s mother slowly turned.

Blaine thought about the neighborhood children, whose parents read them bedtime stories. His mother had never read him a bedtime story, not to his memory. “I’m going to bed.”

His mother nodded. “Goodnight, Blaine.”

“Goodnight, Mom.” He paused in the doorway, still thinking of the neighborhood children. “Would you read me a bedtime story?”

“Oh, Blaine,” his mother sighed. “How old are you, now?”

“I’m six.”

“You don’t need bedtime stories.”

“Okay,” Blaine said softly. He stepped backwards, out of the doorway to his mother’s room. She had turned back to stare out the window. “Goodnight, Mom.”

She didn’t respond.

Blaine retreated to his room, and closed his eyes and slept.

* * *

Blaine wouldn’t have called his childhood lonely.

“A serious little boy,” his aunts and uncles said, “So sensitive.” His grandmother would look at him as if categorizing his every flaw. His father would look at him and turn away. His mother had her life stretched before her, and had no room for the second child.

Perhaps, if they had been closer in age, Blaine would have found a friend in Cooper. Instead, he was rebuffed at every turn by a boy who thought himself a man, and had no use for a younger brother tagging along. Perhaps he could have found himself playing with the neighborhood kids. Instead, he had a different companion.

“Sebastian,” Blaine said. His hands were linked around the chains of the swing. His toes scuffed against the wood chips as he swung. When he looked up, Sebastian was standing there, shrouded in shadow. “I saw a cat today.”

Sebastian strode forward. His limbs were long, and he seemed to stretch across the ground rather than walk. “Did you?”

“It scratched me.” Blaine held out an arm. When Sebastian rolled up the sleeve, he could see a thin red scratch along the inside of the wrist, as if a cat had raked its paw against a too inquisitive child, or as if a lonely boy had taken a sharp penknife and dragged the edge along his skin.

Sebastian rolled down the sleeve again. “You don’t need to lie, to get me to come.”

“It’s true.” Blaine blinked up at him, innocent and guileless. This week alone, Blaine had been pecked at by birds, scratched at by cats, tripped by tall bridges, been nearly attacked by vicious dogs.

“Is it?”

Blaine looked away. He folded a hand over the scratch on his wrist—his right over his left. His legs dangled, toes barely touching the ground. “I wanted to see you.”

“I’m here.”

“You weren’t here earlier.”

Sebastian eyed him.

Blaine looked up at him, mouth drawn in a moue of misery. “I came here and you weren’t here.”

“I was busy.”

“I know.” His hand tightened on his wrist. “I know. But I wanted to see you.”

Sebastian made as if to say something cutting, but instead, he said, “I’ll always be here.”

Blaine was a lonely boy, and at those words he lit up. His mouth split, his eyes brightened, and he breathed, “Really?”

He could kiss him now; he could kill him now, take him and his bright soul and hold them forever. Or he could let Blaine age, like fine wine. Like the finest of vintages.

“You promise?”

Sebastian stepped forward, pulling Blaine from the swing where he sat. Blaine practically flung himself into Sebastian’s arms, burying his face in Sebastian’s jacket. Sebastian settled a hand in Blaine’s curls. “Blaine,” he said.

Blaine breathed, “Yeah?”

“I will always be with you.”

Blaine looked up, eyes wide and seeking. Whatever he saw in Sebastian’s face must have settled him. He stared back, and said, softly, “I believe you.”

* * *

Blaine was not a lonely child.

He was, after all, never alone.

### 2.

Blaine was fourteen and starting high school. He stood in the hallway, watching his classmates stream around him, as if he were standing in the middle of a river: stalwart and unmovable against all of the forces around him.

He remembered a familiar voice, a familiar face, but he couldn’t hear it, couldn’t see it, in the faces of his classmates. Instead, all he heard were careless whispers, too quiet to understand in their entirety, too loud to be ignored.

“He’s a weird one.”

“Who?”

“Him. Anderson.”

“How so?”

“You don’t know? I heard—”

Blaine held his books in his arms and walked, steadily. His father had expectations, after all.

His parents had not changed much as he grew older. His father’s business had grown and grown, and he remained devoted to his work. His grandmother continued to look at him and find him wanting, and his mother did not look at him at all.

He walked, and he thought he could hear footsteps beside him, a familiar presence clothed in shadow. He had grown up searching for death around every corner, and every time he rounded one, he saw nothing.

But he held onto the promise that he had gotten that day in the park.

_I will always be with you._

It was that promise that led him to graveyards, wandering amongst the old and newly dead. It was that promise that led him to haunt the hallways of hospitals, as if he could find Sebastian if he found the right room. It was that promise that drove him to find the dead animals along the road and sit by them, waiting.

Blaine had not been a lonely child, but he had grown into a teenager with rumors trailing behind him. Too quiet, too sensitive, too busy searching for a person nobody else could see.

It was only a month into the school year, but already, the hallways whispered about him. Blaine Anderson, who hadn’t changed since he was a too sensitive, too lonely child.

“Just ignore them,” Nick suggested.

Blaine shrugged. “I don’t mind them.”

He had joined the Warblers when school started. His father had expectations of him: well-mannered, top of his class, popular with the ladies. His mother had looked at him and said, in her usual distant way, “You should make some friends,” and Blaine had obliged, as he always did when his mother asked anything of him.

There were four other freshman that joined: Nick and Jeff—who had known each other since elementary school—Trent, who was in sophomore math already, and Thad, who had political aspirations written all over his face. Blaine had fallen into their crowd with ease, and he found himself sitting with them at lunches even as rumors followed him in whispers.

But Dalton boys were too well-mannered to say anything to his face, and Nick was a cheerful hauberk whenever the whispers grew too loud. 

“It’s rude.” Jeff’s face was pinched as he ate his sandwich.

Blaine shrugged. “It’s fine.”

And it was—the rumors didn’t bother him, not when he thought of Sebastian, and his promise to always stay by his side.

* * *

As Blaine grew older, he saw less and less of Sebastian.

Sebastian was busy, he reminded himself, as he attended Warbler practice and studied with his classmates. He had a single room in the Dalton dormitories, and when the silence was stifling, he wandered the hallways at night, listening for Sebastian’s voice, searching for Sebastian’s shadow. There were no graveyards on the Dalton grounds, but the stone was old and he thought he could feel Sebastian’s touch in the fallen leaves on the ground, in the taxidermical bird he kept in his room, in the skull he kept on his desk.

“Awake already?” Thad asked whenever he passed by Blaine’s open door in the early mornings on his way to lacrosse practice. 

Blaine would shrug in response, not sure how to explain that he hadn’t slept and had spent the evening wandering the grounds in hopes of finding Sebastian.

But he never found Sebastian.

Sebastian was busy, he reminded himself, as he flung himself into his studies and was given a solo for a local Warbler performance. He occupied himself with making the top of his class, as his father wanted, and performing well, so his mother could look at him. He spent his evenings with the other freshmen Warblers, trading notes and editing each others’ essays, and his mornings he stared out the window, as if to catch a glimpse of Sebastian on the grounds.

“What are you looking at?” Trent asked, turning to the stare out the window as well.

Blaine would shrug in response, not sure how to explain his closest companion to sweet unsuspecting Trent.

But Sebastian never showed up.

Sebastian had promised, he reminded himself. He had promised to stay, had taken Blaine’s hand and looked at the scratches and told him not to do it again. Had whispered secrets to Blaine even as Blaine’s parents had stopped talking to him, word by word, until the only conversations he had was with Sebastian. Had said that he would always be by Blaine’s side.

So, he held onto that truth, as the year passed. He spent his time with the Warblers instead—with Nick and Jeff, with Trent and Thad. When the school year ended and summer began, he returned home to his parents. His father studied his grades and deemed them acceptable, his grandmother looked at him and found him wanting, and his mother didn’t look at him at all. It was a relief to return back to Dalton when the school year started again, where his friends laughed and jostled each other on the shoulder and Blaine could sink into the music of their voices without the weight of his parents’ expectations.

And then he met Kurt.

* * *

Kurt was nothing like Sebastian. He was everything like Sebastian.

Kurt looked at Blaine and saw somebody worth knowing. He looked at Blaine the way Sebastian had looked at him as a child, and deemed him worth seeing. He looked at Blaine like he shone brighter than the stars in the sky.

And Blaine looked at Kurt and was a child again, hands clutching the iron chain links of the swing, cut on his wrist stinging as he waited for somebody to notice him, waited for one person to see him. 

Kurt followed him to Warbler practice, asked about his day, wondered about his classes. It was easy to turn to Kurt, who was so present, and respond. It was easy to reach forward and kiss Kurt, to hold his solid hand, to sink into the knowledge that he was there. And Kurt never deterred him from it. Kurt kissed back. Kurt reached forward. Kurt was there.

And Blaine had spent a year wandering the halls in search of Sebastian’s shadow.

With Kurt around, everything seemed to fall to the wayside. Blaine was flush with Kurt’s attention. Nothing seemed to matter, when Kurt looked at him and saw only him. Unlike the other Warblers, when Kurt looked at him, he was not one of a group, but one individual. When Kurt looked at him, Blaine was special. It was easy to step away from his friends, to spend all of his time with Kurt.

“You’re spending a lot of time with Kurt, lately,” Thad said.

“Am I?”

“Don’t forget about us,” Trent said, leaning forward with a familiar smile.

“How could I?” Blaine smiled back, and Trent leaned in to bump his shoulder against Blaine’s companionably.

But he found himself spending less and less time with his friends, and more and more time with Kurt. He wandered the hallways at night, turning at the shadows in familiar memory as he made his way to Kurt’s dormitory to sink down beside him. He watched the moon rise to watch the light spill across Kurt’s hair. And Kurt—when Kurt woke to find Blaine beside him, he would look at Blaine like Blaine _mattered_.

Blaine was used to being alone. He was used to whispers that followed him where he went. He was used to a father who was busy and a grandmother who found him wanting and a mother who didn’t see him at all.

But Kurt saw him. When Kurt chattered, Blaine would smile and listen and then Kurt would pause, and look through his long lashes at Blaine, and Blaine would flush at the promise in his eyes. When Blaine spoke, Kurt listened as if Blaine were making music. When Blaine was with Kurt, he was elevated. 

The last time he felt this way was when he was a child with Sebastian.

But Sebastian had been busy for a long time, and Kurt was here.

When Kurt leaned forward and kissed him, Blaine read the promise in the curve of his lips and leaned forward to kiss back. He pressed his fingers across Kurt’s shoulders and let the warmth fill him like a fire. He held Kurt’s hand, and let their palms press close and their fingers interlace so as to never let them part. He watched Kurt and let himself follow the rhythms of Kurt’s life, so they would always be together. When Kurt moved, Blaine moved with him. When Kurt sang, Blaine sang with him. When Kurt looked at him, Blaine was seen.

He had always wanted to be seen.

And, at night, the two of them in bed, Kurt whispered, “Never say goodbye to me,” and “We can be together forever.”

And Blaine thought of a promise given to him as a child, the long years alone, and he closed his eyes and pressed his lips to Kurt’s and made a promise.

“I’ll never say goodbye.”

* * *

Blaine woke up at night, as he usually did. The sky was dark, and the shadows were long. If he turned his head, he could catch a glimpse of movement, like the rustle of Sebastian’s shadow as he made his way around the corner.

Habit urged him to rise out of bed, to search for Sebastian in the dark corners, to listen for Sebastian in the rustle of the wind. His hand closed on the blankets.

“Blaine?” a voice murmured, still asleep.

It was Kurt, drifting awake from Blaine’s shifting. Blaine stilled. His hand shook as he stroked it over Kurt’s hair. “Go back to sleep,” a voice whispered, and he recognized it as his own.

“Mm,” Kurt agreed.

Blaine laid back down in bed. He closed his eyes and listened for slow breaths beside him, for the steady heartbeat indicating Kurt’s presence.

He was not alone, he told himself, and he closed his eyes to the rustle of shadows. He was no longer alone.

### 3.

Blaine’s father was a successful man. His mother, Blaine’s grandmother, had raised him to rule, and rule he did. He managed his company with deft skill. He managed his family with the same skill. He had expectations, and expectations were made to be met.

Blaine’s father had two sons. His first son, Cooper, became an actor, against his expectations. His second son, Blaine—

Blaine stood before his father, his hands by his side. He was no longer the child who etched scratches into his wrists and called them the doings of stray cats to summon Death to his side. He was no longer the child who stood beside injured birds and waited for them to take their last breath, so he could see Sebastian. He was no longer a child at all.

“You want to study music,” his father said.

Blaine didn’t respond.

Blaine’s father didn’t look at him. For a long time, he just stared out the window, and Blaine was a child again, asking his mother for a bedtime story as she dismissed him in favor for staring outside. Finally, Blaine’s father turned back to him. “What did your mother say about that?”

Blaine’s mother hadn’t said anything at all. Blaine had tried to talk to her, and she had laughed and said, “You’re an adult now, Blaine. You don’t need me to tell you what to do.”

Blaine said, “She didn’t have an opinion.”

His father was frustrated. His voice dropped. “What put this into your head?” A pause, and then he said, “Who put this into your head?”

“Nobody did.”

Blaine had never been an honest child when it came to his father. It was easier to play the role his father expected him to play. It had been easier to swallow down any mention of Sebastian, in any check-ins his father deemed fit to make on his daily activities. Blaine was not an honest adult when it came to his father either.

It had been Kurt, in a dark night, the two of them lying in bed. Kurt had been tracing patterns on Blaine’s chest, and Blaine had closed his eyes at the touch.

“Come to New York with me,” Kurt had whispered. “Stay with me. We can be together, forever.”

Kurt had spun out the future so clearly that Blaine could see it—NYADA together, studying music. Duets. They would be together in every way, and Kurt would be there. Kurt would look at him with the sky in his eyes. Kurt would be with him.

“Nobody did,” Blaine repeated.

His father didn’t believe him. He shook his head. “You used to be a good son,” he said, and though Blaine tried to ignore them, they buried themselves deep within him, like an anchor weighing him down.

* * *

Blaine didn’t see his mother before he moved to New York to be with Kurt, but he saw his grandmother.

Grandmother Sophie looked at him and found him wanting, as she always did. “Blaine,” she said, the name stretching into two syllables in her pursed mouth.

“Grandmother,” Blaine replied. His back was straight as he stood before her.

She studied him, keen-eyed as she always was. He wondered what she saw in him. The too sensitive child who needed to grow stronger to handle his father’s business? The dreamer who had no business dreaming?

“Your father said you plan to study music.”

“I do.”

His voice did not waver. He had days to prepare for this confrontation, but he thought it would have been with his mother, not his grandmother. But his mother had no reason to turn from her dreams of the world outside, so it was Grandmother Sophie before him, her face drawn in the familiar stern lines.

“What do you plan to do with that?”

“I haven’t decided yet.”

Her mouth tightened more. “That’s very irresponsible of you.”

They hadn’t said the same about Cooper, when he decided to be an actor. His father had shaken his head, his grandmother had said, “That boy,” with only a fraction of scorn, and his mother had kissed Cooper on the forehead and told him to be good. Blaine swallowed down the bitterness. He didn’t need his parents’ approval, or his grandmother’s. He had Kurt, who had promised him forever, and that was enough.

“I’ll figure it out,” he said.

His grandmother shook her head. “You’ll change your mind,” she said, and Blaine didn’t respond.

* * *

When Blaine saw his mother, it was after he had been in New York for a year. He had gotten into NYADA, had lived with Kurt, had made plans for their future together and watched it all fall apart.

“What do you mean, you’re done?” Blaine’s mouth had been very dry, staring across the table at Kurt.

“I mean that I need more time!” Kurt’s voice had risen in response, and all Blaine could think about was his father’s disapproval, his grandmother’s prediction, his mother’s absence across the years. “You think it’s easy, being with you?”

“What does that mean?”

“Oh, don’t play pretend.” His voice was unfamiliar. “Perfect Blaine with his perfect life.” It was a sneer. 

“My life isn’t perfect.”

Kurt rolled his eyes.

Blaine felt very cold.

Kurt said, “It’s exhausting, being with you. People used to notice me, you know? But now, you walk in and everybody just looks at you. I used to get solos, I used to get offers.”

He swallowed, to try to draw moisture into his mouth. He couldn’t seem to do so. There was a growing familiarity. When Blaine spoke, his voice was unfamiliar to his own ears. “You could talk to me.”

“Talk to you?” Kurt laughed. It was not a kind laugh. “How?”

Blaine stared back.

“I don’t want to live in your shadow.” Kurt turned away, to stare out the window. “Being with you… it’s stifling.”

Kurt’s face, in profile, began to take a familiar shape, and Blaine didn’t want to see it. He had never wanted to see it again.

“I love you,” Blaine said, and his voice was distant: too young, a child’s voice when he was an adult, fully grown.

Kurt shook his head. “No, you don’t.”

And when Kurt walked away—when he ended the engagement, when he ended their relationship, when he left Blaine alone in a coffee shop in New York City as the rain pattered against the eaves, Blaine could only see his mother again, turning away from him in favor of the world outside.

* * *

Blaine returned home.

He didn’t speak to his father, who was too polite to tell Blaine that he told Blaine so. He didn’t speak to his grandmother, who had never found Blaine enough. He didn’t speak to his mother, who did not even see him return.

Blaine went to the park he had gone to as a child, wrist scratched as if by a stray cat with too sharp claws, a dying bird clutched tight in his hand, and waited.

He didn’t wait for long.

Sebastian looked the same as he always did, cloaked in shadow. He stood before Blaine seated on a child’s swing and took Blaine into his arms, and Blaine flung his arms around Sebastian’s waist, buried his head in his hip, and was a child again.

Sebastian’s fingers curled in Blaine’s hair. “Blaine,” he murmured, and his voice was low and warm. “Blaine.”

Blaine shuddered at the touch. “Sebastian,” he whispered, in reply.

Around them, the leaves rustled, turning golden and red with impending winter. The sun had set hours ago, and the moon cast silver into Sebastian’s hair. Blaine’s fingers closed in Sebastian’s jacket—smooth silk that felt like it would slip through Blaine’s grasp at any second.

“Do you remember who I am?”

Blaine’s breath shuddered in his chest. “Of course I do.”

Sebastian pulled away, and Blaine’s fingers closed on empty air. His knuckles clenched white. “Oh, Blaine,” Sebastian said, low and sweet. His hand cupped Blaine’s cheek. Blaine turned into the touch. “Oh, what have they done to you.”

Blaine’s eyes closed. His hands dropped to his sides, limp. “You came.”

“I came because you need me.”

His head drooped.

The days were long and dark, and the nights even longer. Everything was still and silent, and Blaine had been alone for so long. He had always been a lonely child—his brother too old for him, his father too stern, his grandmother too exacting, and his mother too distracted. He had always been a lonely adolescent, with Kurt who left so easily.

He whispered, “Don’t leave me.”

Sebastian’s fingers cupped Blaine’s chin. He tilted it up, and Blaine’s eyes opened at the motion. Sebastian’s eyes were the green of the elysian fields, and Blaine could drown in them. “Do you mean that?”

“Yes.”

Sebastian’s voice was so low. “You know I cannot stay here, Blaine.”

His eyes closed again.

“But you can join me.”

Blaine’s chest tightened. “I can?”

Sebastian smiled, slow and steady. “You can.” He leaned, so close, and his lips were a caress against Blaine’s cheek. “You know what you have to do.”

There were cuts on his wrists, as shallow as cat scratches. There were scuffs on his knees, from falling down roads. There was a dead bird in a child’s hands, and a shadow that came to collect to its side.

There was Blaine, alone in a world and directionless. “I don’t know if I can.”

Sebastian nodded. He stepped back. “When you’re ready.”

“Are you—”

“When you’re ready,” Sebastian repeated, and he pressed the gun into Blaine’s hand.

### 4.

Blaine went to his mother.

She was staring out the window, as she always did. She didn’t turn when Blaine came in, and Blaine stood at the doorway, wondering how long he would have to wait to be acknowledged.

He remembered Sebastian.

When his mother finally turned, Blaine’s knees had locked from waiting. “Blaine,” she said.

“Mom.” He swallowed. “Can we talk?”

“Mm?” She looked at him. “What about?”

Blaine swallowed. “Kurt broke up with me.”

“Oh, Blaine.” His mother sighed. She had been married for decades now, and had spent her years thinking about the life that she had left behind in favor of a successful marriage to a successful man. “I’m hardly the one to consult about your love life.”

He recognized her face in profile, as she turned back to the window. He had been seeing it his entire life. “Of course,” he said, and went to his father.

His father looked up from his papers. “Have you changed your mind about the family business?” he asked, before Blaine could say anything, and Blaine stared in lieu of forming words, unable to speak. 

His grandmother said, “Changed your mind, did you?” and Blaine thought Sebastian and the gun in his room.

He didn’t call Kurt—Kurt had made his feelings clear. And he couldn’t call Cooper, because he hadn’t talked to Cooper in years. Instead, he sat in his room, alone, and he stared at the gun that Sebastian had given him. It was a pretty thing, silver and long-barreled, with a promise etched in every rivet.

As the sun set, the shadows grew long, and Blaine watched as they twisted and writhed into a familiar form.

Blaine set the gun to his temple.

Sebastian’s hand closed around his.

“I’m ready,” he said.

“I know,” he replied.

The barrel of the gun was cold against his temple, but Sebastian’s lips upon his was warm, and Blaine closed his eyes and smiled.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a modern retelling of a small portion of [Elisabeth the Musical](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elisabeth_\(musical\)), but focusing on Elisabeth’s son Rudolf as opposed to Elisabeth. This means that the story draws inspiration from several points: the German musical Elisabeth about the life of Empress Elisabeth “Sisi” of Austria and her relationship with [anthropomorphized] Death, the Kenneth MacMillan ballet [Mayerling](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayerling_\(ballet\)), and the actual historical figure of [Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf,_Crown_Prince_of_Austria). 
> 
> It would be more accurate to say that this story grew almost entirely from the [Shirota Yuu feat. Ramin Karimloo music video of Die Schatten Werden Langer, or Yami ga Hirogaru](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80XTrt383DU), also known by its English title of "The Shadows Grow Longer." In the duet, Death (played by Ramin Karimloo in the music video) confronts Rudolf. Rudolf is struggling with his responsibilities and expectations as Crown Prince, and Death reminds him of their friendship, from when Death found Rudolf as a lonely child. Rudolf’s emotional neglect drives his struggle: he yearns to be with Death, but to do so involves dying. In this song, Death questions what Rudolf wants—that if he wants the promise made in his childhood, then he has to reach for it.
> 
> While the primary source material is [Die Schatten Werden Langer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihwHC8xCTnc) and its Japanese translation: [Yami ga Hirogaru](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcwuXLNW3N4), I also drew from other songs in the Elisabeth musical. The first time Death and Rudolf meet in the musical is when Rudolf is a child, to the tune of [Mama, wo bist du? (Mama, where are you?)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qC6Yh6MeSOI). In [Mayerling Waltz](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3K9A2G9L7TI), Rudolf attempts to commit suicide, and finally does so with a pistol that Death hands him. 
> 
> For more details about my many thoughts, check out my [soon to come] post on my pillowfort.
> 
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> 
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